


Bag of Bones

by garrisonbabe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Confessional, Confessions, Conversations, Late Night Conversations, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:10:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garrisonbabe/pseuds/garrisonbabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean won’t let him interject, won’t let him say apologies aren’t necessary. Castiel brought him back into the life he’d sworn to be done with. Castiel was selfish and prideful. He started a war and assumed his friends would come to his aid as he’d come to theirs. He’d taken no heed to their emotions and their needs. This is another need. To clear the air, as the Winchesters would say. So now he relents, he falls lax in his place and waits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bag of Bones

**Author's Note:**

> I really don't know. I just wrote this other day over on tumblr.

Somewhere in a broken down house of the holy Castiel can feel Dean’s soul vibrating. It’s twisting and turning and briefly it makes him imagine one of the great sea monsters of legend trapped in a tank made for a guppy. Of course the real question is why one would shrink down such a creature, but he’s sure if Dean was there he’d say  _thinkin’ too much, Cas_  and then move on to another subject.

But this. He’s not thinking too much with this. Dean is in the confessional, sitting quietly. The way the hunter is perched almost makes him think of an old prophet, searching in his thoughts for the voice of a God that seems content to hide behind the Plan. The Plan is just as broken as this ancient church’s stone façade.

Castiel doesn’t know why he came here. Dean had made it clear he was to stay back. But still… there is something of purpose in the way Dean sits in this place of all places, so late at night. A church of God. Under other circumstances Castiel would question if he was reading things correctly. But he knows this man. Has Known this man many times. Other than his own spirit, he knows the soul of Dean Winchester the best.

So he lands quietly, waiting outside the door. By now Dean knows when he’s around. Somehow knew, despite human senses, that Castiel had been keeping an eye on him at Lisa’s. Had known it was Castiel that deposited Sam in his back yard via Heavenly “miracle”.

Perhaps he should have left things at that. Let the brothers get back to their lives, their hunting, never told them of the civil war. Never told Dean about how many times he himself had nearly been killed by a member of Raphael’s forces. If Dean never knew that he was hunted worse than when he’d rebelled, maybe he wouldn’t have been so angry.

“You want to slip inside, Cas? You gotta be as qualified as any padre, right?” Dean’s voice startles him, which should concern him more than it does. He should have known before Dean’s vocal chords even started vibrating, yet the human surprised him. A remarkable human, one who helped save the world as surely as he’d led to it almost ending. But still…

Castiel takes a seat in the opposite side of the booth, not bothering with doors and steps. He knows Dean will know he’s there.

“I got a problem—”

“Dean—”

“—and part of it’s that I can only say something like this if I don’t have to see you.”

Dean won’t let him interject, won’t let him say apologies aren’t necessary. Castiel brought him back into the life he’d sworn to be done with. Castiel was selfish and prideful. He started a war and assumed his friends would come to his aid as he’d come to theirs. He’d taken no heed to their emotions and their needs. This is another need. To clear the air, as the Winchesters would say. So now he relents, he falls lax in his place and waits.

“This life… it takes everything from you.” Dean swallows roughly. “I’ve lost my family, friends, victims I thought I could save…” His voice grows quiet, thought trailing off. “I’ve lost worse than that, too.”

There’s a long, pregnant pause and Castiel wonders if Dean has changed his mind about whatever plan he has for this time. If maybe he doesn’t feel comfortable enough to reveal anymore of himself to someone he used to call friend, then called anything but. Something aches deep inside Castiel at the thought that Dean, who could never hide and after a while had stopped trying, is once again closing himself off.

Then, mercifully, he speaks.

“I could never handle losing Sammy. He’s my life, always will be. I didn’t ever think that would change, y’know? Takin’ care of my little brother, it’s what I was raised for.” Castiel has the feeling Dean is using different versions of the word raise even though only one is spoken aloud. “I’ve had friends. Lost some, saved some. That’s the way it goes.”

Castiel’s thumbs start to fidget over one another, pad of one tracing the nail on the opposite.

“Normally when my friends die they stay dead.” Castiel bows his head and furrows his brow, focusing on an ant crawling across the floor, following a path laid by its brethren. “There’s this one guy, though, he’s died a couple times now.” Despite how little Castiel understands subtext, this message is clear. “First time it happened, I didn’t think I’d care as much as I did. That’s probably really fucked up, right? We’d fought, I said some things, he tried…”

Dean shifts in his seat. Castiel knows because he hears fabric rustling and because he can faintly see the sparks of electricity as Dean’s nerves communicate with one another.

“We’ve been through a lot of shit together. For a while I thought it was over. I had a girl, her kid pretty much became mine.” There’s the hint of a smile in Dean’s words and Castiel resists the palpitations of his vessel’s heart, doesn’t allow his tear ducts to flood over. Dean’s pain has always been powerful, but it’s his joy that hurts the worst.

“I mean, I knew better than to think that was it. I wasn’t that dumb.” Dean breathes deeply to steady himself. “I just thought I’d be upset when it was done.”

Castiel turns his head to look at Dean, ignoring the wood panels separating them so he can look at the way Dean licks his lips and fidgets with his ring.

“I wasn’t pissed at you Cas.” The next words are softer, almost not there at all. “I’m sorry.”

“Dean…” His own voice shakes, though he isn’t entirely sure why and it frustrates him that he can’t control it.

“I felt like shit for doing that to Lisa and Ben. Just up and leaving again. I wanted to be happy. When I pictured myself happy…” Dean sighs and shakes his head. “I wasn’t happy. I tried, even with the devil’s traps on the rugs and holy water under the bed. I tried to get out. But…”

“It’s in your blood.” Castiel hopes he hasn’t crossed a boundary by finishing the thought.

Dean half-chuckles, fingers carding through his own hair as he rubs at his scalp. “Yeah. In my blood.”

Silence stretches on for minutes, air barely moving around them and growing hotter with the heat they naturally radiate. Castiel adjust himself until he sits two inches closer to the partition and leans back until his head hits the wall of the booth.

When Castiel speaks his voice his quiet, reverent of the exchange they’re having. “I never had a childhood.”

He isn’t sure where he’s going with this, but he feels he owes Dean something. In truth he owes his friend far more than words, but for now they’re all he has. “I was created as a soldier, I did as I was ordered, much as you.”

He closes his vessel’s eyes and looks beyond the lids, waves of color floating lazily through the air. Some of it is runoff from Dean’s soul, emotions bleeding out, some of it is simply the energy of the place itself. Abandoned churches tend to be charged.

“When I first considered disobedience, rebellion… I thought there would be a plan. Something to guide me as I aided you.” He opens his eyes, focusing beyond even their church, extending his consciousness out to find a baby with colic three blocks over. He soothes the child and retreats as the mother heads to bed. “There was nothing. I was never made for freedom. Neither were my brothers and sisters. When I returned they asked me what God wants us to do with our freedom.” Dean scoffs and Castiel’s mouth quirks up at one corner. Looking back he can have the same reaction. “If I’d known then what I do now, I think I would have told them that freedom is a length of rope and that God wants us to hang ourselves with it.”

Dean is quiet for a moment, then he seems to realize Castiel is looking a response. He clears his throat and licks his lips. “Sounds about right.” Castiel tilts his head and waits for Dean to continue. “You just gotta choose where to tie the knot. Hang yourself by the throat or the ankle.”

Castiel smiles softly, something of amusement and agreement swimming through his mind. “I have intruded on your life—”

“Cas—”

“No, Dean. I have intruded on your life. You have already given much and I’m asking for more when I have no right to—”

“You got every right to.”

They’re both silent, tension seeping in like the pale light under the chipped confessional doors.

“Dean, I can’t do this without you.”

Dean huffs, not quite a chuckle, not quite a scoff. “Yeah you could.”

“I don’t wish to.” More silence seeps through them, settling them back down. “I need you, I need Sam. You’re my friends, Dean. I can no more fight this war without you than I could survive alone more than a year ago.”

His words sink in the air, disturbing the dust that had been content to lie and wait for uncaring teens to sneak in for a safe place to drink. Dean’s soul still thrashes, though it seems less agitated now.

Dean opens his mouth once, then closes it, then opens it again and rests his forehead against his palm. “Cas, you’re family. Whatever you need, we got your back.”

Something warm breaks loose when Dean says that.  _Family_. The closest thing to the Winchesters is their family, the ones they would do anything for. Castiel has witnessed personally how far Dean will go for his family.

“I hold the same for you, Dean.” He feels like he’s saying something else at the same time, revealing something that there aren’t quite words for yet.

Dean catches it, turns his head toward Castiel’s seat and blinks slowly. A slight smile pulls the edge of Dean’s lips. Time is speeding up, or so it seems, because suddenly they both feel an end to whatever time they’d allotted for this meeting. Castiel prepares to stand and he can sense Dean doing the same.

They exit at the same time, steps aligned when they hit the cracked floor. Castiel looks around, sees the broken windows and frowns. This church had been beautiful once, but is now in severe disrepair, neglected for other things. He idly hopes it isn’t meant to be an omen.

Finally his line of sight falls on Dean, the hunter’s gaze chasing the path of his much like the ant following the scent trail earlier.

Castiel places a hand on Dean’s shoulder, the formerly scarred one, and nods shallowly. “Thank you, my friend.”

Dean nods back and mirrors Castiel’s gesture. “Anytime, Cas.”


End file.
